Author Topic: Elon Musk, 6 February 2023: "Mars in 20 years" (Read 17870 times)

Tywin · « **on:** 02/07/2023 03:26 pm »

Is Musk throwing in the towel on the Starship trip to Mars?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1622746027152273409

[zubenelgenubi: Edited thread title.]

CaptainFilter · « **Reply #1 on:** 02/07/2023 04:15 pm »

I think he is just referencing the previous post about it being 20 years since he stated the goals of the company. And, hopefully, in twice that time it should be possible to get to Mars. Whether that is realistic or not.

waveney · « **Reply #2 on:** 02/07/2023 05:15 pm »

That would be Martian Years...

darkenfast · « **Reply #3 on:** 02/07/2023 07:37 pm »

He's made more progress towards Mars than anyone else on this planet ever has. Along the way, he has revolutionized orbital launch, brought back the commercial launch lead that the U.S. had squandered, made electric cars mainstream, and is rapidly expanding internet access to places that never had it. Just a billionaire's vanity project? Seriously?

Oersted · « **Reply #4 on:** 02/07/2023 07:59 pm »

..Also, he wants to develop Twitter into an "everything app" that people use for all their shopping, banking, social media use, networking, communicating, etc.

You don't earn big money owning the hardware backbone (Starlink). You earn big money selling services using that backbone. That's what Musk is aiming at. He is playing 3D chess and he is quite a few moves ahead.

cro-magnon gramps · « **Reply #5 on:** 02/07/2023 09:37 pm »

Quote from: Oersted on 02/07/2023 07:59 pm

..Also, he wants to develop Twitter into an "everything app" that people use for all their shopping, banking, social media use, networking, communicating, etc.

You don't earn big money owning the hardware backbone (Starlink). You earn big money selling services using that backbone. That's what Musk is aiming at. He is playing 3D chess and he is quite a few moves ahead.

The basis of x.com. This is the foundation for Mars Society, being premiered on Earth in the next 10 years.

su27k · « **Reply #6 on:** 02/07/2023 11:48 pm »

Quote from: su27k on 02/07/2023 02:29 am

Hilarious that people hang on to Elon's every word when it fits their world view, and completely ignore him when it doesn't.

Phil Stooke · « **Reply #7 on:** 02/08/2023 12:03 am »

Those might not be the same people. Some folk hang on to his every word, others ignore him.

geza · « **Reply #8 on:** 02/08/2023 03:39 am »

The 20 years have passed. Now we are waiting for the first orbital test flight of Starship, the vessel that is supposed to take humanity to Mars. Not bad

.

Some delay was expected from the very beginning. In 2017 Musk suggested that the first cargo mission would fly to Mars in '22, followed by the first crew in '24. It does not happening. Most recently he predicted '29 for the latter. Still, not bad

.

However, expecting 2043 for the first boots on the surface would mean a complete failure for the Starship project, as we know it.

meekGee · « **Reply #9 on:** 02/08/2023 03:59 am »

Quote from: Tywin on 02/07/2023 03:26 pm

Is Musk throwing in the towel on the Starship trip to Mars?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1622746027152273409

[zubenelgenubi: Edited thread title.]

Is he? He didn't say "First manned flight" or some such, but a very broad "humanity will reach".

Given that there is zero evidence that there's any slowdown at the Starship effort (in fact it's just accelerating, with facilities in Florida now) the obvious meaning is that there will be large scale presence in 20 years, as opposed to just a base.

This is in line with previous estimates, and plans for hundreds of ships going per synode, and the scale of the factories and pads being constructed.

Keep looking though!

Lampyridae · « **Reply #10 on:** 02/08/2023 07:24 am »

"Hopefully, humanity will reach Mars in 20 years"

1. He's being cynical in a "fusion is always 20 years kind of way"
2. He's simply looking forward to the progress of spaceflight and hoping we don't blow ourselves up
3. He's referring to Mars colonisation, as in by regular Joes

Personally I wouldn't read too much into off-the-cuff tweets of a man who works wayyyy too hard.

spacenut · « **Reply #11 on:** 02/08/2023 06:43 pm »

Several things have to happen.

Starship reaches orbit and lands as well as the booster.

Starship proves refueling in orbit for the lunar mission for NASA.

Starship has to complete the Starlink constellation of 42,000 satellites for Starlink to fund the Mars mission.

Starship goes to Mars.

Sabatier methane has to be produced on Mars for crew Starship to return to Earth.

Humans go to Mars.

Also, launch facilities at the Cape as well as the two offshore pads would have to be operational for multiple refueling flights.

All this may take some time. I am 69, hopefully in my lifetime.

yg1968 · « **Reply #12 on:** 02/08/2023 06:45 pm »

Quote from: Michael Sheetz

Shotwell says SpaceX wants to land people on "Mars hopefully this decade, maybe early next decade," saying 2030 sounds realistic.

https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1623397872799457281

kraisee · « **Reply #13 on:** 02/08/2023 06:46 pm »

Just my opinion, but I don't see much preventing boots on Mars within 10 years, maybe as little as 6 years.

Artemis-3 currently targets Starship's prop depot, lunar landing and life-support capabilities to all be functional by 2025 (I personally expect that to slip to '27 or '28). Those achievements represent a huge portion of the work Starship needs to prepare for Mars. The biggest remaining hurdle at that point will be Mars EDL, and once they crack Earth EDL then there's no reason not to start sending a string of Starships towards Mars and gradually perfect their systems, much as they did when they originally started landing F-9's.

I do think its more like 20 years until we see the first colonists heading for the red planet permanently. That goal is paced, not by Starship, but by a vast amount of surface infrastructure that still has to be developed; ISRU, power, habs, rovers, cave/tunnel/soil-covered radiation protection and of course, a Mars Starlink network and more besides. I haven't seen much evidence of significant work on any of those fronts yet (Elon even said as much in Everyday Astronaut's first Starbase tour in Summer '21), so it's logical to expect colonization efforts are still a considerable way off.

Ross.

Valerij · « **Reply #14 on:** 02/08/2023 11:12 pm »

Quote from: geza on 02/08/2023 03:39 am

The 20 years have passed. Now we are waiting for the first orbital test flight of Starship, the vessel that is supposed to take humanity to Mars. Not bad .

Some delay was expected from the very beginning. In 2017 Musk suggested that the first cargo mission would fly to Mars in '22, followed by the first crew in '24. It does not happening. Most recently he predicted '29 for the latter. Still, not bad .

However, expecting 2043 for the first boots on the surface would mean a complete failure for the Starship project, as we know it.

I absolutely do not agree that this is the collapse of the Starship transport system as a project. But this is an acknowledgment that Elon Musk has now realized the unrealisticity of the Mars colonization program without serious preparation, by the "all of a sudden" method.

It seems to me that Musk has now realized that the transportation system that provides the opportunity to start the colonization of Mars, which he promised to create, and which he is now creating, does not in itself mean the beginning of colonization, that for this it is necessary to start working on the "Martian Colony" project.

Musk does not back down from tasks that seem insurmountable. And I think that now we will see Gwynn Shotwell working on "Project Starship", and Elon Musk himself will now begin to work more on the project of creating a Martian Colony. And I think that in order to create a Martian Colony, it is necessary to create a wide consortium. Now Elon Musk, as one of the richest, and, of course, the most ambitious person on planet Earth, will cope with this.

meekGee · « **Reply #15 on:** 02/08/2023 11:55 pm »

I love it how all the people who regularly discount everything Musk says suddenly latch into a single ambiguous tweet, interpret it as contradicting everything he's said so far, and choose to believe that tweet over all the other information.

Shrug.

Don't have to wait till 2030.. Just wait a couple weeks to see if indeed this is the new SpaceX timeline and Mars landing has indeed been delayed till 2043, and once that's refuted, go back to refuting everything coming out of SpaceX instead of (everything-1)

Valerij · « **Reply #16 on:** 02/08/2023 11:55 pm »

Quote from: kraisee on 02/08/2023 06:46 pm

Just my opinion, but I don't see much preventing boots on Mars within 10 years, maybe as little as 6 years.

Artemis-3 currently targets Starship's prop depot, lunar landing and life-support capabilities to all be functional by 2025 (I personally expect that to slip to '27 or '28). Those achievements represent a huge portion of the work Starship needs to prepare for Mars. The biggest remaining hurdle at that point will be Mars EDL, and once they crack Earth EDL then there's no reason not to start sending a string of Starships towards Mars and gradually perfect their systems, much as they did when they originally started landing F-9's.

I basically agree with this. But I do not believe that Elon Musk, with his ambitions, will stop at the problem of "Mars in twenty years." I think we're about to see him working furiously, creating a broad consortium to found the Martian Colony. We have already seen this when he gathered the people in Colorado to discuss his project.

Quote from: kraisee on 02/08/2023 06:46 pm

I do think its more like 20 years until we see the first colonists heading for the red planet permanently. That goal is paced, not by Starship, but by a vast amount of surface infrastructure that still has to be developed; ISRU, power, habs, rovers, cave/tunnel/soil-covered radiation protection and of course, a Mars Starlink network and more besides. I haven't seen much evidence of significant work on any of those fronts yet (Elon even said as much in Everyday Astronaut's first Starbase tour in Summer '21), so it's logical to expect colonization efforts are still a considerable way off.

Ross.

And here I completely disagree. We are already seeing two manned flights on Starship ordered. These are the "Dear Moon" and "Polaris-3" projects. When the Starships fly to Mars and the landing on the planet is worked out, I'm sure there will be a group of 10-15 madmen who will go on a flight to Mars, when the ISRU systems have not even been assembled yet.
Do you remember how Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic?

And these lunatics will find the money, order Starship, and go to Mars. True, some of them, having built the ISRU systems, will return to Earth to enjoy the well-deserved glory. But some choose to stay. These will be the first colonists.

Valerij.

TomH · « **Reply #17 on:** 02/09/2023 12:03 am »

This is just semantics: similar to westward movement historians parsing who qualifies as explorer, trailblazer, pioneer, settler.

There is a continuum and future historians will determine the lines of demarcation, not us.

Vahe231991 · « **Reply #18 on:** 02/09/2023 12:41 am »

Quote from: geza on 02/08/2023 03:39 am

The 20 years have passed. Now we are waiting for the first orbital test flight of Starship, the vessel that is supposed to take humanity to Mars. Not bad .

Some delay was expected from the very beginning. In 2017 Musk suggested that the first cargo mission would fly to Mars in '22, followed by the first crew in '24. It does not happening. Most recently he predicted '29 for the latter. Still, not bad .

However, expecting 2043 for the first boots on the surface would mean a complete failure for the Starship project, as we know it.

Musk's initial schedule for the first cargo and crewed missions to Mars was rather far-fetched, and the fact that waste and inefficiency dogged the Starship program as soon as the first suborbital prototypes of Starship were built and tested probably convinced Musk to revise his tentative timetable for using Starship to flying humans to Mars.

Alvian@IDN · « **Reply #19 on:** 02/09/2023 12:43 am »

Quote from: Vahe231991 on 02/09/2023 12:41 am

Quote from: geza on 02/08/2023 03:39 am
The 20 years have passed. Now we are waiting for the first orbital test flight of Starship, the vessel that is supposed to take humanity to Mars. Not bad .

Some delay was expected from the very beginning. In 2017 Musk suggested that the first cargo mission would fly to Mars in '22, followed by the first crew in '24. It does not happening. Most recently he predicted '29 for the latter. Still, not bad .

However, expecting 2043 for the first boots on the surface would mean a complete failure for the Starship project, as we know it.
Musk's initial schedule for the first cargo and crewed missions to Mars was rather far-fetched, and the fact that waste and inefficiency dogged the Starship program as soon as the first suborbital prototypes of Starship were built and tested probably convinced Musk to revise his tentative timetable for using Starship to flying humans to Mars.

Paywalled & most likely a clickbaity article (imo any space article written other than Eric Berger, Michael Sheetz, Christian Davenport, Jeff Foust, Spaceflightnow, NSF, Irene Klotz, should be ignored)

(And yes, see Shotwell remark above)